Cursed Art Therapy: Carolyn Kills | HC 2P Guide

Carolyn Kills

Hello everyone! After my recent series I thought I'd post a new decks from time to time released as a two player pair. For this 'Cursed Art Therapy' duo, on the therapy side we have Carolyn as a Guardian (madness!). Carolyn uses Wicked Athame to do some killing while keeping Pendant of the Queen charged, with The Key of Solomon controlling curses and turning them into cash. This deck is paired to CurSefina (link here), which I've also posted today - enjoy!

Overview

• Wicked Athame recharges taboo Pendant of the Queen, giving you a permanent string of powerful effects (including testless clues) once per turn. The Key of Solomon manages curses added to the bag from Athame while giving cash, and committing Vicious Blow ••, Overpower or Inspiring Presence to Athame tests mean you won't always need to add 3 tokens to have a good chance of success. Alongside Vicious Blow, testless damage is added with Dynamite Blast and Explosive Ward to enable Wicked Athame to finish off enemies. Until both Hallowed Mirror and Pendant of the Queen are in play, Explosive Ward does 3 damage with Occult Reliquary - you can re-specify from an Arcane slot to an Accessory slot when needed.

• Further testless clues are from Field Agent (with Soothing Melody and Inspiring Presence for healing), as well as Stirring Up Trouble. Two copies of Field Agent are included so you can be loosey-goosey about keeping the first one alive - albeit the latter is taken as a late upgrade. Mouse Mask is there for when you do need to test to investigate, and it can also be recharged with Wicked Athame, allowing you to test at an effective 7 with Field Agent.

• With the combos mentioned above consistency is key. Backpack •• and Prepared for the Worst on Stick to the Plan let you readily mine your deck. Card draw also mills your deck further and enables cycling, using Eldritch Initiation (a 3 card draw until you get both Hallowed Mirror and Pendant of the Queen into play), Deep Knowledge, Overpower and a stream of Soothing Melodies, as well as Hypnotic Therapy. The tutor cards and raw card draw work well in tandem, as when Backpack doesn't get everything out everything you need then follow-up card draw helps, likewise card draw can help find Backpacks in the first place. I never had trouble with key combos as a result.

• Resource generation is The Key of Solomon, Emergency Cache and then healing cards such as Soothing Melody, Inspiring Presence and Hypnotic Therapy paired to Carolyn's ability. Ever Vigilant gives a discount on assets, noting that most of these are cheap already, with the exception of Field Agent. Cycling your deck is usual at least once, so you have plenty to be spending your resources on.

• In terms of synergy with Sefina, it's both the provision and management of tokens here, as well as cleric capability and cards like Deep Knowledge to trigger card draw for either of you. Testless clues are always useful - looking at a location in two player and knowing you can get 4 clues off of it with Field Agent, Pendant of the Queen and Stirring Up Trouble without a single test should not be underestimated.

Campaign starter and planned progression

With In the Thick of It this a 29 XP deck. There's one point of overlap between this and the partner Sefina deck, and that's Occult Reliquary. Personally I never worry about proxying permanents, but if you feel strongly then it can be replaced with Relic Hunter on this deck (at the expense of Explosive Ward and Eldritch Initiation). Or you could just buy a second Hemlock Vale investigator pack for a single card, whatever floats your boat! 0 XP deck is as follows (and link here):

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades for remaining cards is:

• Occult Reliquary

• 1 x Grim Memoir → 1 x The Key of Solomon

• Backpack → Backpack ••

• Stick to the Plan (load with Emergency Cache, Dynamite Blast and Prepared for the Worst)

• 1 x Emergency Cache → 1 x Ever Vigilant (replacing the other Emergency Cache on Stick to the Plan)

• Vicious Blow → Vicious Blow ••

• 1 x Hallowed Mirror → 1 x Hallowed Mirror •••

• Working a Hunch → Stirring Up Trouble

• 1 x Guard Dog → 1 x Field Agent

What didn't make the cut

For this particular deck I thought I would revive this section from my much older decks, as there's a lot here that didn't make it which is worth discussing:

• Gabriel Carillo. The deck has ample card draw already, and I find the addition of more tokens clashes with Wicked Athame (plus you need a Charisma to use him alongside your a Field Agent).

• Beat Cop ••. If you want more damage, then Beat Cop over Field Agent is your guy. For me personally, I find testless clues to be more of a priority as there's good damage in the deck already (and Sefina can pull her own weight in this area too). I've added Beat Cop as a side deck option however.

• Enchant Weapon. While the persistent +1 damage is nice, Enchant Weapon is anti-synergy with Eldritch Initiation and Explosive Ward as it takes an Arcane slot. As your deck will often cycle to provide these events and things like Vicious Blow •• again (and Sefina will do enemy management as well), I prefer the deck without it.

• Gang Up. It's nice with the 3 different classes running through your assets, but the combat boost isn't quite high enough to be reliable - especially when there is a fair few tokens in the bag.

• Well Prepared. Well Prepared seems very nice paired to The Key of Solomon, however your is usually fine as it is and you don't need to test for clues often. It's nice, but just didn't quite make the cut for these reasons.

• Peter Sylvestre. You generate enough cash that he's not needed, plus again he requires Charisma (and he turns off when Rational Thought comes into play). Sorry hunky football boyfriend!

• (A) Research Librarian, (B) Control Variable, (C) The Star • XVII, (D) Wolf Mask, (E) Practice Makes Perfect, (F) Pathfinder, (G) Promise of Power. Respectively: (A) you have enough tutoring already, (B) it's a crappier Working a Hunch, (C) you're not always going to see a Tarot card vs. the XP investment, (D) you don't need boosts and is good already, (E) it can miss at crucial moments and there isn't space for it on Stick to the Plan, (F) it duplicates some functions with Pendant of the Queen while being another card to get into play, and (G) it's on the Sefina deck!

Final thoughts

I've always had a fascination with making Carolyn able to Guardian despite her not being built for it. With Wicked Athame, Vicious Blow •• and Explosive Ward this deck does a reasonable job of that - and as the weapon refuels Pendant of the Queen or Mouse Mask combat doesn't feel tacked on arbitrarily. Realistically, Wicked Athame is there to make non-fighters able to fight - and Carolyn is perhaps the most non-fighter investigator out there - so it does sense!

On the management side, The Key of Solomon is all you need (really allowing you to dictate how many curses are in the bag) plus it gives you cash for paying for events when you cycle. It's worth stressing a big part of the value here is testless damage and clues, as being able to do things in the game with 100% certainty is powerful and factors heavily into your decision making. Overall I found this deck unarguably cool and fun, and (most importantly) viable.

In terms of partnering this deck, a big advantage was that its use of Mystic tech is quite minimal, leaving the door wide open for a sorcerous companion. I chose Sefina for this as her enemy management is particularly strong, and she's a great user of Eye of the Djinn and has good access to curse Mystic cards. Rod of Carnamagos •• in particular really helps to tie up enemies in useful ways to make Carolyn's kills go further. A full write up of the CurSefina partner deck is here. Hope you enjoy and consider giving the Cursed Art Therapy partnership a try!